Smart Composites for Non-Invasive Structural Health/Process Monitoring

Structural failure in industrial and infrastructure systems is a major cause of concern for governments and businesses. Dr. Gaurav Pandey's work describes a revolutionary approach to design robust structures which can warn about their impending failure. Dr. Gaurav Pandey presents his solution to a very difficult problem - of monitoring micro-cracks in composite structures. This high impact and highly cited research has generated interest from both the academia and the industry (aerospace, wind, energy and railway transportation). Smart composites, as described in the present work have the ability to scream, cry and warn about micro-cracks. This gives enough time to take the structure off service, hence saving valuable resources by preventing catastrophic failures. Dr. Pandey designs these new class of materials by using cutting edge nanotechnology and high frequency electromagnetics. Smart materials - science fiction a few decades ago are now a reality and can be implemented in aerospace, oil/energy and civil infrastructure. This ground breaking research gives hope to the engineers to prevent future catastrophes resulting from structural failure.